The present invention relates generally to telecommunications fiber optic infrastructures. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and process for deploying and managing a central office fiber optic infrastructure in response to demand from either a customer location or other Operating Telephone Company (OTC) location.
Telecommunications central office infrastructure is deployed in response to perceived or forecasted customer demand. The central office infrastructure includes a Fiber Distributing Frame (FDF), numerous central office equipments mounted in equipment bays which are arranged in rows known as equipment lineups, and cables which connect the central office equipments to outside plant (OSP) cable facilities via the FDF.
In most modern telephone central offices, the rows of equipment lineups are placed parallel to the FDF. An overhead cable rack (sufficient in length to extend from the FDF to the equipment lineup most distant from the FDF) is typically placed on one or both sides of and perpendicular to the FDF and equipment lineups. The cable rack provides a path for cables connecting between the FDF and equipment bay lineups in the central office. The cable racks provided for these cables can vary between central offices based on specific site constraints.
Once the initial deployment of central office infrastructure is in place, customer locations are connected to particular equipments within the central office. First, outside plant (OSP) cable from the customer locations is terminated on the FDF. The specific location where an OSP cable connects to the FDF is known as a facility termination.
Equipments are physically installed in equipment bays which are positioned in rows known as equipment lineups. The majority of central office equipments are deployed in bulk amounts on an annual basis in response to forecasted demand. Other equipments are deployed as a direct result of specific customer requirements. Cable from these central office equipments in the equipment lineups runs along the cable rack to particular locations on the FDF which are known as equipment terminations. A cross connect jumper is then run from a particular assigned equipment termination to a particular assigned facility termination on the FDF. This cross connect jumper is usually dual fiber and provides an optical connection as needed to service a particular customer location. Cable paths between equipment terminations on the FDF and the central office equipments in the equipment lineups are developed according to the peculiarities of each particular central office location.
Central office equipments are deployed with connectors mounted on the back plate of the equipment. These connectors facilitate connecting an equipment cable between the equipment and the FDF. Because the length of the equipment cable varies depending on the location of the equipment in the equipment lineups, a custom length cable must be measured for each equipment or group of equipments and connector assemblies must be fusion spliced to one end of the cable for connection to the connectors on the equipment back plate. If the connectors are improperly spliced to the equipment cable, the signal may be lost at the connection. Deploying on site fabricated equipment cables and splicing connectors to the cable is time consuming, costly and inefficient.
Generally, the Operating Telephone Company (OTC) deploys OSP cable and central office equipments on an independent basis using separate work orders. These separate work orders result in facility and equipment terminations which are randomly located on the FDF with no regard to insuring proximity between terminations which will be connected with a cross connect jumper. Thus, cross connect jumpers on the FDF can vary widely in length and require ordering, stocking or on site fabrication prior to placement on the FDF. These methods of supplying cross connect jumpers are disadvantageous for reasons including the following: 1) rapid deployment of new services to the customer is impeded because supplying the jumpers can take from one day to two weeks, 2) fusion spliced connectors are required for each jumper, and 3) custom length jumpers are costly. In addition, the use of a cross connect jumper as an intermediate connection between the outside plant cables and the equipment cables is inefficient and requires two connection points which results in unnecessary signal loss.
The current central office infrastructure deployment methods do not provide a fail-safe provision for positive verification of the deployment of central office equipments or their corresponding equipment terminations on the FDF. In most cases, the information included in the work order is entered into a data base. However, variables such as unverified work, omissions, and transcript errors result in a data base which can be far less than 100% accurate.
Current methods for the deployment of equipment bays in the central office are best described as random. Equipment bays are deployed in the next available space and access the FDF over a common cable rack at the end of the equipment lineup. When a particular lineup of equipment bays can no longer be grown due to structural constraints or the local fire codes, a new lineup of equipment bays is started and run parallel to the first.
The new equipment lineup accesses the FDF over an extension to the common cable rack at the end of the existing equipment lineup. When a particular cable rack reaches capacity, another route to the FDF is designed and a new cable rack is deployed. The same can be said for the methods for the deployment of equipment cable on the FDF. When new equipment is deployed, the corresponding equipment cable is terminated on the next available shelf or shelves on the FDF. The method of terminating OSP cables on the FDF is much the same, in that a new OSP cable is usually terminated on the next available shelves. Both Equipment terminations and OSP terminations are deployed on the FDF in a manner that is best described as random. There is no basic organization and as a result all connections on the FDF are accomplished using cross connects.
Cable management in the majority of central offices which deploy equipment lineups in parallel to the FDF is inefficient. In these central offices, cable routes must run from a particular equipment in a direction parallel to the equipment lineups until reaching the cross aisle (workplace safety concerns weigh against running cables directly from a central office equipment on a fiber pathway above and perpendicular to the equipment lineups toward the FDF because workers would be required to use ladders or other equipment to raise cables above the equipment lineups). Once at the cross aisle cable rack, cables are run towards the FDF where they must turn and run parallel to the FDF to access a particular equipment termination on the FDF.
Cables in the cable rack are randomly stacked one upon another over the years of operation of the central office. When a central office equipment is retired or replaced, the cable(s) which connected this particular equipment to the FDF is cut and left in place in the cable rack. Because equipment retirement usually takes place approximately 10 years after a cable is initially installed, the cable is usually buried beneath a 10 year accumulation of other cables in the cable rack. The inability to identify specific cables within the cable rack makes actual removal of the particular cable extremely burdensome. The OTC""s inability to identify specific cables within the cable rack means the cables cannot be reused to connect replacement equipment. As a result, cables are usually used for only 10 of their approximately 25 years of useful life. When a replacement or new equipment is deployed in the equipment lineups, a new cable must be deployed and placed on top of the stack of cables in the cable rack to connect this new equipment to the FDF. Thus, over a period of years, the cable rack essentially consists of unused cut cables on the bottom of the cable rack and new cables accumulating on the top. Once the height of the cables in the rack begins to exceed the rack capacity, cables on the bottom of the rack are mined. Mining entails using a variety of cutting and removal tools or similar equipment to cut and remove cables which may have been in place for 10 or more years. Because the line between active and dead cable in the cable rack is unknown to the OTC, the mining operation often results in service interruption to some customers as live cables are accidentally cut and removed.
In view of the foregoing, it can be appreciated that a substantial need exists for an apparatus and process which addresses the above-discussed problems.
The present invention relates to deploying and managing a telecommunications fiber optic infrastructure. The basic infrastructure comprises a fiber center distributing frame, customer equipment (such as telephones) connected to the fiber center distributing frame, and central office equipment (installed in equipment bays) connected to the fiber center distributing frame. The standard components required to deploy and manage the infrastructure are determined by entering customer demand information into a software system. In response the customer demand information, the software system describes the required standard components and prefabricated cables, assigns the standard components and prefabricated cables to their specific locations and enters this information into a reference data base.